Photo: Mike Kepka/The Chronicle
Last week, an item in the Contra Costa Times about a supposed (read: unsubstantiated, to this point) move in San Francisco restaurants to institute a 25% tipping standard sparked a media whirlwind. At the time, Scoop pointed out that not one person in the San Francisco restaurant community had heard of it, let alone started a movement for it.
Nonetheless, the “report” is still getting picked up by national media outlets and being treated as a news story — since the weekend, it’s gotten coverage in USA Today, TIME, Drudge and so on, with hardly anyone questioning its actual veracity. Even Canada and Europe are talking about it.
Rob Black, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA), shared his take with Inside Scoop today, and it’s the same take as many SF restaurant personnel: He’s never heard of it either.
“As far as we can tell, it’s a complete fabrication,” Black says of this new urban legend. “We’ve looked into it and haven’t yet found anything.”
He adds: “The city can’t mandate tips anyway.”
But there’s a more important component to this. It’s become such a mainstream story that Black has gotten calls from relatives in Connecticut about it. In other words, the snowball nature of the story has sparked lots of negativity from potential tourists who are taking The 25% Myth as fact and might be disinclined to visit.
“It’s really dangerous, because if you look at the comments, you see hundreds and hundreds of negative ones,” Black says. “16 million people visited San Francisco last year, and polls say 50 percent came here to eat. It’s the top driver of the city’s number one industry, tourism.”
And that’s not even counting the effect it may have on locals — Inside Scoop has already heard reports from local restaurants where nervous diners have asked servers about The 25% Myth.
So until some solid proof is offered that this is a real thing, here’s a plea to all media people who keep rehashing it: Can we please stop citing this story as fact?
(Note: It should be pointed out that the original Contra Costa Times article has also been recently re-worded from “Media sources report that San Francisco restaurant workers are behind it with support from some high-class restaurants” to “Some San Francisco restaurant workers believe there should be a 25 percent tipping standard.”)
· OK, are restaurant staffers really demanding a 25% tip standard? [Inside Scoop]